You can now REGISTER for the conference | child-care | harbour-tour
Conference-Opening with Inga Copeland and Born in Flamez | Rote Flora | 24.11. | 7pm
_reproduce(future)_ is a command in an imaginary programming language. The syntax of this command corresponds to those used in common programming languages: _reproduce_ is a function, _future_ its input (argument, parameter). We enter something into the function, it manipulates it and thereby fulfills a task. If the code of this function is not available, we cannot see what it does, what it implements. In this sense, _reproduce(future)_ can be understood as a machinic command of capitalism. It is not subordinated to decisions of an individual or a group. Instead it automatically re-enters the status quo again and again, which in this case means the conditions of the continued valorisation of value. The _function_ reproduces the future by erasing it. This is capitalism as technology. _reproduce_ is a black-box. To analyse how capitalism reproduces itself means to open this black-box. But we cannot be satisfied with just understanding its input-output-relations. We have to analyse the function itself, understand the way it works. But even that is not enough. We need to show that capitalism is not simply a machine, but a social relation. Thus, questioning the reproduction of capitalism won’t be successful without questioning the organisation of the social as well. The contradictions that come to the fore are not simply problems for or within the code, which can be made to disappear through its optimisation. They are constitutive elements of the way capitalism functions. At the same time, it is these contradictions that allow us to overcome it, because they also bring into view the possibility of an emancipated future. In this sense, _reproduce(future)_ is meant also ironically. There is no machine that does the political work for us. Emancipation means to resist the automatisms we reinstantiate ourselves every day, through our practices, and to open them up to collective decision-making. Neither a liberated future, nor liberation itself can be delegated to an algorithm. As such, _reproduce_ is an impossible function. Yet, the reproduction of a desirable future for man as species-being remains dependent on technology. That is why we need to make the code of social reproduction collectively available and programme it with regard to the common. Hence, _reproduce(future)_ points to the emancipatory potential of technology. It is this multivalence of _reproduce(future)_ that captures the essence of the subtitle of the forth …ums Ganze! conference – _digital capitalism and the communist wager_.
…ums Ganze! – communist alliance, september 2016